“Liberty Molested” (2024)
Destroying Evidence is a Crime
erasure is a capital offense
redacted acts committed don’t exist
when felons strike the match there’s no defense
a gravity of culling has beset
ideas, shapes, and sizes on the block
creative output yanked from walls & shelves
recorded testaments of what is best
and worst about a species gone awry
with highs and lows that put us to the test
we fail when hatchets chop and pages burn
we fail when splinters pierce and vapors choke
we fail if don’t include the “all” and learn
compassion and acceptance cultivate
a way of co-existing for a change
to larger path, inclusiveness can’t wait
not cast aside by smirks and dirty looks
to thrive distinct yet well-wished by the rest
a seasoned trail as evidenced in books
I am today’s host for dVerse’ Open Link Night, where you can link up any one poem. There is also the following optional prompt:
1) choose one of the given quotes to inspire you. Please indicate which quote you wrote to and give attribution somewhere in your post.
2) choose another quote from another banned book and do the same
3) write about what banning books does to a society
Tao Talk 
Great title, Lisa, and a powerful poem. I didn’t realise that banning books was rampant in the USA. These lines are very upsetting: ‘a gravity of culling has beset
ideas, shapes, and sizes on the block
creative output yanked from walls & shelves’.
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Kim, it is an outright campaign! Certain groups post lists and send their followers to their local libraries and demand the books be pulled from the shelves. I’m sure a substantial number of these volumes have not been read by the demanders; they are tools carrying out dastardly duties given to them. Librarians are under attack.
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Yikes! We are not hearing about that over here. As I’ve said before. the USA is becoming Gilead.
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YES
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It’s like doing everything ‘they’ insist that Islam does!
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It’s like a fun house mirror at the carnival, but not very funny :(
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It’s crazy what you guys in America are going through! The next generation will be so much poorer.
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:(
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A poignant poem Lisa. That Verse is as stark as it gets
Thanks for dropping by my blog today
much♡love
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Gillena, it makes me want to hold on to my books even more. They’ve threatened to shut libraries down if they don’t remove particular books from libraries. Here is something that happened the next county over earlier this year:
https://www.woodtv.com/news/ottawa-county/embattled-patmos-library-reopens-after-majority-of-its-staff-quit/
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The New York Public Library is celebrating Banned Books Week. So far public schools here are resisting too, but who knows? The fact is, your child can find anything they want online. So unless you are banning the internet too, spending your energy banning books is pointless. Guns are the leading cause of children’s death in the US. Yet they want to ban books instead of guns. Ludicrous. (K)
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BRAVO on NYPL celebrating and resisting. Everything else you said is absolutely spot-on. Banning books but not guns. We’ve gone topsy turvy. You’re right the kids of today can do and go anywhere online and many of them get hack past any barriers! I remember taking kids to summer school when I worked and the ones who operated it made kids turn in phones when they showed up. So… what did they do? Brought and hid extra phones. There is no stopping it at this point.
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None at all. But banning books seems to be a symbol for them of thought control. I wonder why they wish to limit their own thoughts so much? It’s a mystery to me.
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Kerfe, I just got goosebumps when I read “thought control.” It’s been staring me in the face, but that’s EXACTLY what it is! I can’t help but feel that our animalistic nature hasn’t caught up with the technological age for many and they have become overwhelmed. An old co-worker pounded this into my head: look at it as a matter of disposition or capacity.
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I do think they are overwhelmed. We all are. It’s hard to think with all that noise (now I’m thinking of the Police…”too much information running through my brain…”)
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Banned books have always fascinated me. The people who ban books are most often not big readers: The first to say words aren’t important and then burn them because they have too much power. I like how your poem connects the violence of book destruction with the fear of equal coexistence.
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Maria, it’s challenging for readers to see non-readers as equals, so maybe that’s what they fear? Is that what you’re getting at? My mom didn’t read much, and she had a certain contempt for those who did. One of her sayings was, “there is book sense and there is common sense.” She discounted the first and depended on the second.
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My interest is fear of all kinds. So yes, that’s what I’m looking at, but also the fear of those who read to know everything, and those in between. Thank you for sharing your personal experience.
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I see, and I commented more on the other post about it as well. You’re welcome.
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Yes! I agree this is such a powerful poem Li. Why is this government so afraid of intelligence and the desire to learn more. This is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. 😦
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When the other branches are there to balance power, they seem to have been bought by corporations that are beholden to the orange one in one way or another. We, the People, need to step up and say enough.
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Thanks for the prompt, Lisa. Those who have no original thoughts fear them, I think. Ban the banners, not the books!!!!
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Judy, I’m sure you are right.
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You have laid this out very well, Lisa. I just saw on the news today that some parents are suing the state of South Carolina over books being banned from their children’s school! Well done.
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Thank goodness people are fighting back :)
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Which is always the case when you take a stand on a given position! I guess there are things to consider on both sides of the issue!
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Dwight, I feel like the bulk of the masses are caught between two polar evils. One side wants totalitarianism and the other side wants to keep rolling along on waste. Both engines are powered by greed, money, and lust for power. We the People are being ground to dust between two great grinding wheels.
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Sadly I think you are right!
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I take it that the digital age has dumbed humanity down to its dumps and sumps and trumps. It’s the technical quicksand that distracted then slurped Rome.
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Brendan please say more about Rome’s “technical quicksand” will you?
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Another way of sayng fast hurling technology is humanity’s — and maybe Earth’s — quicksand. Faster we go, deeper we sink.
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It is indeed a crime to change history and erase the evidence.
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It’s disturbing to see where things are heading, and the massive amount of work it will take to undo all the criminal and immoral acts.
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Yes, it is.
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“redacted acts committed don’t exist” – the victors rewriting history until the truth is forgotten. This is a powerful line and the poem overall a strong write. For me, this is what verse is for.
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Shaun, it is downright chilling. Thank you very much.
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Well-expressed, Lisa! I love the punchy title too. It amazes me how much books are banned in some American states. I wonder if they ban the e-publication too? They must do. Let’s hope all the banned books are still in circulation somehow.
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Nina, thank you. I think the trend towards e-books in libraries is troubling without a hard copy backup. I’m holding onto my books. As long as we can still buy hard copy I have hope.
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Indeed. The revolutionaries among us will always find a way 👍 There’s a lot of brave people in America and more power to them.
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<3
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